But if you'll bear with me. A great writer, writes what he/she has never fucking known.
How do they do this?
In my experience (mind you, I'm not calling myself great), it's when they're asleep.
Dreaming, rather. I've experienced things in there that I can guarantee, no man could ever really experience in real life.
But last night, was one of the rare ones. The ones that come in full stereoscopic smell-o-vision 4D surround sound. Last night, I was killed by the Chinese government.
Now, I've never actually been to China. What I've seen and heard all come from what I've seen and heard from those who have been. So when I tell you that the smell in the air was musty and sweet, and that the hardwood floors felt tacky on account of the humidity; it's not from personal experience.
Thing is, how real things felt is not the interesting part of this story. My parents, myself, and some young girl were in our house as two Chinese officers came into our house. They were asking where my brother was, from what I can tell (as it seems I came into the middle of this dream), he snuck out of China to head to the states. My folks played dumb. They acted like they didn't know, and the junior officer became more frustrated to the point of threatening to shoot my folks. I held the young girl to the side of me as to try to keep her from freaking out from what was about to happen. To all our surprise the senior officer pulled out her gun and shot the junior officer in the head. He falls to the ground.
The woman takes a breath, thinks for a second, and unloads two shots each, into my parents heads, and into the head of the girl, and then, myself. The bullet struck me above my right eye and I think the second bullet grazed my temple. I was still alive. The young girl I failed to protect, fell in front of me. I could see through the bullet hole in her head to the woman standing over us. She was changing clips. As I laid there, I was thinking that she wouldn't notice I was still alive and that when she left, I would be able to get up. To my dismay, she unloaded the fresh clip into our heads.
As the bullets penetrated my skull, I didn't feel any pain. My vision became blurred and the image went from a woman shooting at me, to red, to a blinding white.
And in that spectrum transfer, I felt an emotional shift as well. I went from a little scared to completely calm. As the white around me became brighter. I became aware I was waking up. I tried not to, because there was something there, something between the light and oblivion. It was just starting to take shape. And right at the brink, it stopped. I was awake. I didn't open my eyes because I'd knew that white light would go away, but I knew there was no way I could go back.
Did I dream death? I have no clue. All I can say is that whatever that was, it was one of the most serene feelings I've ever experienced.
And if that's what death is, then all will be well.
